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The Internet Announcements

ICANN Officially Approves .jobs and .travel TLD's 263

Posted by CowboyNeal from the open-for-work-and-tourism dept.
EyeMyke writes "As reported on News.com, ICANN has approved the .jobs and .travel domains, and is pending decision on .asia, .mail, .tel, and .xxx. One has to ask 'Will these new domains actually prove useful, or is ICANN just avoiding the real issues confronting them in regards to regulating domain registration?'" We've covered both of these domains before, but it would seem they are even more-approved now, or at least the process is important enough to warrant an official announcement from ICANN.
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ICANN Officially Approves .jobs and .travel TLD's More

ICANN Officially Approves .jobs and .travel TLD's

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  • I can't believe they added .jobs (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:26AM (#12186638)
    Why does steve.jobs need a whole TLD? That man sure has an ego!

  • Are these really useful? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BluhDeBluh ( 805090 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:26AM (#12186639)
    Does anybody really use their last lot of domains, such as .info and .coop? I very, very rarely see either getting any use, to be honest.
    • The address of the New York Subway system (also called the MTA) is www.mta.info.

      John.

    • Re:Are these really useful? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:40AM (#12186734)
      I don't know, but I think we ought to add some extra TLDs to make things clear: .spware .scam .ripoff

      etc.

      And for ICANN, .kerching

    • Yes... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by derfy ( 172944 ) *
      I see .biz/.info in spam all the time.

      Oh damn, I've depressed myself.

    • Re:Are these really useful? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      .info is reserved for websites that have actual, usable information. That's why you see so few of them around the net.

    • Hey if it screws any of those guys who buy up domain names to sell with no intention of ever using them I say huzzah. Maybe the really good names should be assigned like chairs in a band.

      "Todays feature bouts are Western Digital challenging Maxtor for harddrive.com...IBM vs Tinkerbell for pixiedust.com...and Rush Limbaugh vs Jerry Falwell for bigfatliar.org...todays special grudge match pits Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs for parc.rip"

      May the best site win.

      billy - wondering if blo.job is still available
    • They're usually on spams. You know, the kind that wants you to think that citicorp.biz is the Citicorp web site and therefore you should give them your password and credit card. (As far as I can tell there is no citicorp.biz, actually, but you get the idea.)

      Actually, I see it most often on business cards from extremely small businesses. The kind where FooCorp has taken the .com name but some local consultant thought that FooCorp would be a cool name. Not fraudulent, but just a latecomer.

      Like another p
    • They would have been useful if they weren't 12 years to late. The problem is that during the boom .com got all of the attention and all of the advertising money. If they had had a few hundred TLD's from the beginning, (.doctor, .car, .tourists, .hobby, .etc...) then people would be used to the idea. As it is, I bet a lot of people try to type www.blue.aero.com because .com is so drummed into their heads.

  • Names (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <mark AT seventhcycle DOT net> on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:27AM (#12186643) Homepage
    I for one can't wait until they approve .xxx. Here are a list of names I would snag up, both xxx and otherwise.
    1. whitehouse.xxx (It would of course refer to clinton as president... it HAS to)
    2. britneyspears.xxx (Imagine the hits you could get to a site like this)
    3. g.mail (nuff said)
    4. euthan.asia
    5. steve.jobs
    6. michaeljackson.xxx (Because I want the FBI at my door)

  • Not enough (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ites ( 600337 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:28AM (#12186657) Journal
    TLDs should not be restricted in this way. It creates an artificial shortage which simply acts as a tax. Is there any technical reason why TLDs cannot be created by anyone with the capability?

    • Re:Not enough (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 )
      Then it will start looking like the newsgroup hierarchy.
      • The problem with usenet names is the fact that there is a master list. There is no such list for the web, and making one, yet alone displaying it, is really unfeasible.

        I don't really see this as a problem. There is a lot of legislation in place to keep people away from trademark issues, so I say let people register whatever name they want, just don't be evil.

        • The problem with usenet names is the fact that there is a master list.

          This is true within the 8 hierarchies historically known as Usenet (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, talk) and within many other hierarchies but there is certainly no authoritative list of top-level names.

          There is no such list for the web, and making one, yet alone displaying it, is really unfeasible.

          Right, but there's a hierarchy of authoritative name information.

    • Re:Not enough (Score:5, Informative)

      by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:36AM (#12186710) Homepage Journal
      and indeed, research public dns servers some time.

      you'll find there are MANY alternate tld schemes, including one which was using .biz- and that got destroyed by icann..

      http://support.open-rsc.org/.servers/
      You can freely use any of these servers instead of your ISP's nameservers if you want to be able to see ALL the domain names on the net, not just the ones in the US Government controlled nameservers. You will, of course be able to see all the "old" domain names like .com, but you'll also be able to see all the ORSC new top level domains, too. If you need instructions on how to use these please see
      for one example.
    • Is there any technical reason why TLDs cannot be created by anyone with the capability?

      None at all. That's the way it currently works. Only ICANN has the capability :-)

    • Re:Not enough (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ceeam ( 39911 )
      Because www.sony.com is probably less confusing then sony. Just sony. Or http://sony/ is you like. I bet there would be much, much more jammed namespace then even .com.

  • Monster.jobs? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MSTCrow5429 ( 642744 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:34AM (#12186690)
    Clearly, monster.jobs is required, because monster.com has had such a low hit rate. And I suppose a few others. So we've created a top level domain for about 4 or 5 sites total.

    • TLDs should be optional (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tehshen ( 794722 ) <tehshen@gmail.com> on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:47AM (#12186777)
      It's always annoyed me how companies must register two or three domains, to pull in the users that only know .com. If you are a .org (like Slashdot) it's best to register a .com as well, so lost visitors get to your site that way as well; if you're a .co.uk (like the BBC) you also need a .com for the same reason. It shows that the TLD idea wasn't thought through, or was designed to make people register many domains, generating loads of money (not best for the end-user).

      Citing monster.com as an example again: it is a jobs site, so it should get a .jobs domain. But not many people have heard of .jobs, so it has to get a .com as well. But why do we need these - what's wrong with 'http://monster' by itself? It should go to the main monster jobs page. If I wanted country-specific sites, I would go to the monster.co.uk or monster.de subdivisions. Categorising things by their status just confuses things.

      I shouldn't care whether the site I want is a network, a company, or a non-profit organisation; usually I just want to get to the site.

    • Re:Monster.jobs? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:59AM (#12186844) Homepage Journal
      You've nailed it exactly. Supposedly, each company will want to rush out to register example.jobs in addition to example.com, but that's just dumb. What's so hard about www.example.com/jobs, or jobs.example.com for that matter?

      I can't imagine a big push by webmasters to move their visitors off their primary websites onto another domain. They'd suddenly have a pack of extra issues to deal with, like realizing that their current authentication cookies that are set for .example.com won't carry across to their new site.

      I can almost see the utility in adding a small set of additional TLDs (as opposed to opening the TLDs and being done with it), but the ones they pick are invariably stupid special-interest projects that maybe 15 people will use. I could understand one for, say, .rest for the millions of restaurants out there. Why they labor and strive to bring us .giantballofstring is beyond me.

  • .xxx is potentially bad news. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by \\ ( 118555 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:34AM (#12186692) Homepage
    I don't really understand the point of a .xxx tld. You can usually tell from a domain name if you should be loading the url or not, it isn't like everything will be forced to use .xxx once the new tld exists.. unless..

    If the point of .xxx is to force adult web sites into using it, how long until adult sites are sued into the ground for using other tlds? What if I'm running a french or italian language site with occasional boobies on it on a .com tld, would some tool force me onto a .xxx? Or even a .uk site?

    Blarg. .xxx is perhaps more stupid than the entire artificial tld scarcity bit.
    • To make an analogy (uh oh) I probably should've made above, retroactively creating a .xxx is like trying to ban guns in a country that already has millions upon millions of guns already in circulation. It'll never work.
    • on the contrary, .xxx will make good business(selling names to porn sites) and a lot of people will want a domain ending in .xxx just for the fun of it.

      now.. .jobs is useless. how many sites will there be that the name will be useful for, and how many sites of those that already exist want to rebrand their site to .jobs? none? 100 at most, not enough for a tld imho.
    • Easy blacklisting, for school and library filters. Also, for scrupulous porn sites, it's good marketing.

      Let's say hustler.com simply becamed a redirect to huster.xxx. Any school/library filter would instantly know it's a no-no site, without having some schlub at the filter company check to see if its about tricking people on the basketball court.

      For various reasons, FORCING sites onto the xxx tld would be a bad thing - you'd have to put someone in charge of deciding what's pornographic, or adult, and that
      • What about horror sites like stile project or ogrish or whatever that are clearly not pornography but don't fit into .xxx? Why not just make .nc17 or .mature or .adult or something?

        I really believe someone is going to eventually introduce legislation forcing adult content onto .xxx, or something specific, and I think that's a mistake.
        • I really believe someone is going to eventually introduce legislation forcing adult content onto .xxx, or something specific, and I think that's a mistake.

          Exactly. And one man's adult content is another man's vacation photos from a topless beach.


      • Easy blacklisting, for school and library filters. Also, for scrupulous porn sites, it's good marketing.

        [...]

        For the seedy sites that try to fool you into visiting them, or that pretend to be one thing when they're really another, this doesn't do much.

        Exactly.
    • Not entirely true. I was surfing at lunch one day, looking to pick of a weight training bench. I wanted to check out the selection of the local Dick's Sporting Goods store so I (naively) went to dicks.com. Whoops. Glad *I* was the one responsible for reviewing HTTP logs. :-\
    • Not true. I remember a guy at work in late 90s who wouldn't type www.excite.com because he thought it wasn't work appropriate, and what about whitehouse.com?

      John.

    • Re:.xxx is potentially bad news. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john@lamar.gmail@com> on Saturday April 09, 2005 @10:02AM (#12186861) Homepage Journal
      If the point of .xxx is to force adult web sites into using it, how long until adult sites are sued into the ground for using other tlds? What if I'm running a french or italian language site with occasional boobies on it on a .com tld, would some tool force me onto a .xxx? Or even a .uk site?

      Maybe the first step is to just create the xxx domain.

      What I'd do (if I was ICANN or whomever):

      * Create the xxx tld and then take a select bunch of dictionary words and sell them to pr0n friendly bandwidth/hosting providers.
      * Make them the official registratrs for "free.xxx", "anal.xxx" or whatever.
      * This creates more imaginative and available pr0n namespace (pr0n is always going to be number one)
      * Allow ISP's or OS vendors to block xxx domain
      * Stop accepting pr0n sites for .com, .net, .org, (and .edu and .mil)
      ** Don't get into censorship, unspoken agreement.
      * Allow pr0n marketing on other tld's...
      ** Direct community of pr0n content producers to use the xxx tld when the content is obscene
      ** Example: playboy.tv is a site about the channel, but it doesn't have nude content. When you want nude you click into xxx tld, unless your parents blocked it.
      ** Example (2): Playboy.com is a portal to all xxx tlds but contains magazine content; all images are hosted on a xxx tld.
      * Only send form letters to .com owners when enough people vote for it or something...

      I think we can solve the "censorship" problem a lot easier that way. Make it transparent to content producers who want to go wild and they will adopt it fast, and that is all it takes. Build the porn, they will come (no pun intended).

      Some say this approach will cause it to become USENET 2010, but I say that depends on content producers. If they want to create pointy.boobies.bobs.image.xxx let them - but they will learn right away that won't work.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @10:21AM (#12186941)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Make no mistake, dot triple X is very dangerous. This fight has been fought before, but today without the conscience of the net's early pioneers .. we are heading into trouble.

      If the dot triple X domain is approved, the following worst case scenario is possible.
      I don't believe it will actually happen because so far, the people have always held freedom of speech up to be very important.

      Note, this is a worst case scenario. I don't believe it's all that likely to happen.

      Popular websites, such as playboy.com

  • It's not a dupe! (Score:5, Funny)

    by CHESTER COPPERPOT ( 864371 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:34AM (#12186694)
    "We've covered both of these domains before, but it would seem they are even more-approved now"

    Whoah, back off people he's just applied a +4 magical dupe shield. Now we can't use our 4th level 'Cry of dupe' scroll.

  • Two reasons I think these new domains won't make a huge impact.
    First because people can spell whitehouse.com better than whitehouse.xxx, due to the O ;)
    Second, .COM is largely seen as the sole TLD around which the web is based.
    When .mail, .asia and .xxx etc become available, people with .com domains would be seen as old timers in the field. I remember icann also approved of .pro. How many people do you know who actually use .pro? These extra TLD's are just another way of generating revenue for regist
    • Actually .com is a really good indicator which sites to avoid. Usually .net and .org sites are less corporate (as in: ads only and no useful information) and contain more useful information.

  • Can we have a .dot, too while you're at it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:35AM (#12186699)
    It would greatly improve slashdot's domain.

    http://slashdot.dot sounds great. Like morse code or something.

    • Re:Can we have a .dot, too while you're at it? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It would be http://slash.dot, you insensitive clod!
    • http: slash slash slash dot dot dot

      Fabulous! Typing that URL is a superb introduction to Slashdot's essentially redundant nature. Soon you'll be posting stories that rephrase actual news sites, enjoying CmdrTaco repost them, reaffirming the evils of draconian copyright law in any mildly appropriate article and reusing the Soviet Russia meme. It all starts with the slash, followed by a slash, followed by yet another slash.

  • No no no (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:43AM (#12186745)
    What we REALLY need is a .blog and force them all onto it so we can exclude them from search results.

    Plus it'd be really easy for goverments to censor them all in one fell swoop! :)
  • sales at ICANN members must be declining. What medium to large company isn't going to register .jobs? Those that dont will generate lots of billable hours for their lawyers.

    But I'm probably just seeing the glass as half full aren't I?

  • At this point... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by brainnolo ( 688900 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @09:54AM (#12186814) Homepage
    At this point the tld does not make any sense anymore. Sites are (were) classified in 2 big categories:

    - By language (.it, .de, .au, .uk, etc..)
    - By kind (and assumed language was english (.org, .com, .net, .edu)

    The first category is ok and works well. But then we come to the second. Having these 4 original category: .com, .org, .net identified Commercial sites, Organization sites (usually non-profit), .net i really never understood and .edu represent educational institues. So the .info was missing (but is largely unused) and they added it. Now .travel, .jobs etc are just confusing. How do i distinguish a travel agency from a informational site on travels from the TLD if they have the same TLD? This put in the same category completely different sites. I really thing the travel agency should be .com and the info site should be .info. Also .biz for me is a misterious entity because it could be interpreted as .com.

    So why can't people just use the 2nd level domain to describe who they are? The TLD is already composed of enough entries to distinguish the category.

    Slashdot should be .info in my mind. Or .dupes, but that is another story.

    • Re:At this point... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Adelbert ( 873575 )
      At this point the tld does not make any sense anymore. Sites are (were) classified in 2 big categories: - By language (.it, .de, .au, .uk, etc..)

      What language do they speak in .au (Australia) and .uk (the UK) then?

      Originally, non-international websites were meant to use their own countries (correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a .us?). However, more and more companies, organisations and people just go for .com, .org, .net or whatever.

      Its not even consistent between countries. In Australia, th
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • .net i really never understood

      I think these have always been arbitrary, since anyone can get a .com/.net/.org domain (unlike .edu and .gov), if not always then at least as of the late '90's, but there were supposedly people with mindspring.net email addresses, who were employees of mindspring.com.

      While .com is obbviously commercial, AFAIK there was never anything stopping anyone from selling something from a .net or .org domain. I recall where someone (perhaps quite reasonably) around 1998 though you co
  • It is time to dump the .COM and othe meaningless now meaningless TLD.

    Let the UN take ICANN over and start selling global trademarks. So IBM becomes just .IBM not .IBM.COM

    With that local trademarks set right under... .IBM.US then .IBM.CA.US then .IBM.LA.CA.US

    • Let the UN take ICANN over and start selling global trademarks.

      The UN as a merchant? Oh no! Everything else would be far better than this!

      If the UN starts selling things, shouldn't they be using the un.com domain instead of the .int tld?

  • .SEX, .XXX, .KIDS Restrict Freedom of Speech (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ron Bennett ( 14590 ) on Saturday April 09, 2005 @10:00AM (#12186849) Homepage
    Below is one of several posts I made on Domain Name Policy List back in 2000 and to the Public Comment Forum regarding New TLD Applications.

    --------

    Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 23:52:50 -0400
    Sender: Owner-Domain-Policy
    From: Ron Bennett
    Subject: [ICANN COMMENT] .SEX, .XXX, .KIDS TLDs Restrict Freedom of Speech
    To: DOMAIN-POLICY@LISTS.NETSOL.COM

    First the problems with the proposed .SEX & .XXX TLDs:

    The proposed TLDs .SEX and .XXX seem well intentioned as a way of partitioning off adult oriented materials from minors, etc.

    But how does one exactly define adult oriented materials? -especially considering the internet is an international medium. What is considered adult oriented here in the United States isn't elsewhere and vice-versa.

    And what happens when ICANN or whoever decides to go the next step and restricts adult oriented materials to *only* certain TLDs - for example .SEX and .XXX only.

    And how would such content restrictions be enforced?

    In the end TLDs such as .SEX and .XXX will probably result in ICANN dictating content too.

    In regards to problems with the proposed .KIDS TLD:

    Many of the same points above apply to .KIDS too...

    How does one exactly define kid oriented materials? -especially considering the internet is an international medium. What is considered adult oriented here in the United States isn't elsewhere and vice-versa. For example, nudity in many parts of the world such as parts of Europe and Japan is not considered harmful to children. On the other hand, violence aimed at children is widely tolerated in the United States, but not content containing nudity.

    And how would such content restrictions be enforced?

    And as I said above, in the end TLDs such as .KIDS will probably result in ICANN dictating content too.

    TLDs should be used to better categorize content, but not to restrict it. While .SEX, .XXX, and .KIDS TLDs are well intentioned, all three of these TLDs are all primarily intended to *restrict* content as opposed to merely categorizing it. It's very important to keep this distinction in mind when considering new .TLDs.

    Bottom line is that TLDs should be for categorizing content, not restricting content which is what the proposed .SEX, .XXX, and .KIDS TLDs would do and thus they should *not* be added.

    Ron Bennett
    bennett@wyomissing.com

    --------

    More posts and comments by others involved in domain name policy regarding these issues:

    http://www.circleid.com/article/530_0_1_0_C/
  • While I applaud the .xxx TLD simply because I'm a male, I'm not sure it's going to help resolve any namespace conflicts. After all, one of the main reasons for adding new TLDs is because the old ones are getting too crowded (the other reason for this one being easy filtering). But the thing is, girlswithhorses.com is probably going to be just as pornographic as girlswithhorses.xxx. Can anyone actually think of a case (besides spoof sites like whitehouse.xxx or motel6.xxx that ride their .com counterparts

  • Well... (Score:2, Funny)

    by RPD9803 ( 669023 )
    the owners of www.blow.com would certainly want to snap up the equivilent .info and .jobs tld...

  • .travelcom? .jobscom.com? .xxx.cum.com? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@g m a il.com> on Saturday April 09, 2005 @10:06AM (#12186877) Homepage
    Yay. More TLD's that nobody but spammers will use. Everybody else will continue to default to the "gold standard" in domain branding: the .COM.

    .COM has been-- and will be for a long time -- the most recognized and most valuable [sedo.com] namespace.

    (Personally, I almost never care where a domain is hosted, because I use Google to search for my "bookmarks" and rarely type-in domain URLs manually. The new TLDs are just a limited opportunity for registrars to print new money, IMO.)

  • i think .mail will be useful but i dont see any tld's like .bank, .isp, etc so i dont think .travel is a good idea (who paid them for that?)
  • Where can I register the .bull and the .crap TLD's?
  • Check out what spammers will resort to if this passes:

    ----
    Hey! Check out this cool website!
    http://tinyurl.com/6jxzk [tinyurl.com]
    ----
  • its know well on adult webmaster communities that if a .xxx was introduced, it would just produce clones of .com and .net names using affiliate codes or copies.

    The proposed act to force adult sites to use .xxx would create a mass rush, and mean people losing domains they rightfully should own
  • I am absolutely appalled at this decision to create more TLDs. Not only will they create more confusion for the end user, but they will also make it much more expensive for companies to secure their name on the Internet. Why should I have to buy 10 domains with different TLDs to make sure that nobody will try and rip off my company's name online? Anyhow... how many sites do you actually *trust* with a .info domain? Most of them appear to be stupid advertisement link sites. There is no reason that we need an
  • .howlongwillthesetldsget ?
  • One has to ask, will these new domains actually prove useful, or is ICANN just avoiding the real issues confronting them in regards to regulating domain registration?

    Or, is ICANN just printing up more scrip for the company store? Minting new tokens, marketing them to collectors? Inventing a new fantasy baseball team in order to sell baseball cards?

    Yesterday we could choose from five types of breakfast cereal, all more or less same other than packaging. Today we pick from fifty different kinds of br
  • goatsec.xxx or goatc.xxx
    hand.jobs
    time.travel
    youth-in.asia
    hot.mail
    hot.xxx
    in.tel
    ordering-wives-from.asia
    etc, etc...

  • The shortest TLDs are 2-letter ccTLDs. Why don't we consider 1 letter TLDs as well: .a, .b, etc...?

    Incidentally, the german telecom, which changes names like a chameleon every now and then, called itself something like t... a few years ago (or they used this as a logo?), and they seriously asked if they could register 't...' as a domain name. Oh well, they've changed names again since then.

  • Seems a bit arbitrary to me. Why not have dot-freedom, dot-books, dot-stupidity...? How are they coming up with these TLDs?

    Forgive my ignorance but isn't the DNS hierarchy a throwback to the days when bandwidth was low and most data was kept in flat files?

    With modern database technology and highspeed connectivity how difficult would it be to map an IP address to any name with or without any number of dots distributed over a couple of hundred strategically placed name servers? Like a global telephone book.

    • The telephone system in most countries already works that way: it maps an arbitrary telephone number to a real physical slot number. That's the reason people can keep their telephone numbers even when moving to a new location.

    • With modern database technology and highspeed connectivity how difficult would it be to map an IP address to any name with or without any number of dots distributed over a couple of hundred strategically placed name servers? Like a global telephone book.

      That's how DNS works, except that we've all agreed to use the same list of 13 root nameservers controlled by ICANN that publish the same data. It's almost trivially easy for a DNS admin to add or remove servers from that list, but there's a bootstrapping

  • I mean, it seems the majority use of such .new and .odd domain names is by spammers/scammers. There's wusb.fm, but the station apparently already had wusb.org which forwards to the same page anyway. Seems redundant to me.

    Is there any real reason for these? It seems the demans remains for .com domains, with .net and .org of the same name registered just to prevent squatters.

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